China convulsed in revolution during the 1940s; Mao Zedong established the one-party state of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Is in Orwell's own uncertain world, he could not have imagined how his predictions for humankind would morph and metastasize beyond the terrors of Mao's Cultural Revolution and into the cyber-authoritarianism we are seeing in Xi Jinping's China today.
"Certainly the social credit, the total face recognition systems, the concentration camps in China, evoke all the dark imaginings of a 20th century dystopian like Orwell," Adam Simon, a Los Angeles-based science fiction screenwriter, director and producer, tells TAC. "But what is perhaps most pernicious is how many of the Chinese techniques are created and enabled directly and indirectly not by some nefarious 'communist' social weapons lab or politburo but by the 'best of the West' from London to Silicon Valley."
In China today, there are more than 200 million cameras and an unknown number of security robots roaming the streets, watching the populace, in public and private spaces.
China certainly has more cameras per person than any other country in the world.
"The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades," charged Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW, in 2018.
"What's troubling is when those private systems link up to the government rankings-which is already happening with some pilots," says Mareike Ohlberg, research associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/george-orwells-dystopian-nightmare-in-china-1984/
Is in Orwell's own uncertain world, he could not have imagined how his predictions for humankind would morph and metastasize beyond the terrors of Mao's Cultural Revolution and into the cyber-authoritarianism we are seeing in Xi Jinping's China today.
"Certainly the social credit, the total face recognition systems, the concentration camps in China, evoke all the dark imaginings of a 20th century dystopian like Orwell," Adam Simon, a Los Angeles-based science fiction screenwriter, director and producer, tells TAC. "But what is perhaps most pernicious is how many of the Chinese techniques are created and enabled directly and indirectly not by some nefarious 'communist' social weapons lab or politburo but by the 'best of the West' from London to Silicon Valley."
In China today, there are more than 200 million cameras and an unknown number of security robots roaming the streets, watching the populace, in public and private spaces.
China certainly has more cameras per person than any other country in the world.
"The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades," charged Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW, in 2018.
"What's troubling is when those private systems link up to the government rankings-which is already happening with some pilots," says Mareike Ohlberg, research associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/george-orwells-dystopian-nightmare-in-china-1984/
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